Hola mi familia!
Happy new year!!! How did it go? Mine was pretty fun! Guess what my district did. Guess... BOWLING. We went bowling! I was so excited. And guess what else. I won haha. that never happens! Bowling isn´t very popular here. (Note: new years eve-day bowling became a family tradition of ours, years ago with dear New Jersey friends.)
Today I have been out here for 2 months. I´m not gonna say it´s flown by, but two months! That´s a twelfth of my mission. It´s interesting, I have really gained a lot of excitement this week. I´m really trying to learn to care less about myself and more about these people, and it´s really helped me get over all the discouragement! But the adversary is not cutting a break. This week has been tough. Almost every visit we have scheduled has fallen through. We barely taught a few lessons this week. It´s been hard because we don´t know what to do when our plan falls through, and so does our backup plan - for almost every hour. I hate feeling like I´m wasting the Lord's time.
We have however seen SO MANY miracles, it´s unbelievable! I wish I could tell you about all of them. I am just so happy here! I love this work, and I love this opportunity! One of them was on Saturday. We had intercambios because my district leader wanted to see how our area is doing. I was sent to the Area Pacifico with my district leader's companion, who has been here the same amount of time, and speaks NO Spanish. yeah. While I am understanding more and more each day, I was still pretty nervous about it. I asked the Lord for a miracle, and I definately recieved one! I had almost no problems communicating. I don´t know how, maybe they just talk slower in Pacifico. There was one time, where a woman asked if we baked with wheat in the US. But I could not understand "wheat " from her description until she showed it to me haha!
Well that same woman asked us for a blessing for her mother. A blessing of health. Elder R anointed in English and I sealed it in Spanish. Way cool! Yesterday was pretty cool as well. Never have I sat in a more powerful fast and testimony meeting. Even though the ward has so many struggles. These really are great people, who serve the Lord so faithfully! I cried, really hard haha.
The Spanish is coming pretty well. Like I said, they can understand anything I say, and I can express almost everything I want to say. I´m still struggling to hear and understand what they are saying, but it is getting a lot better. I´m becoming more and more involved in conversations. I´ve had some problems being timid-imagine that! But I´m working hard to get over that!
I don´t have anything else to say other than it is really hot here! Can´t wait for summer.
Con mucho amor,
Elder Smalley
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